The third and final workshop for southern Africa took place from the 17-19th August 2010 at the Heja Game Lodge in Windhoek, Namibia. The workshop brought together a total of 23 participants from the seven participating countries: Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The participants included representatives from wildlife authorities, national environmental agencies, national statistical offices, and conservation NGOs. All agencies from the first two workshops were represented, providing a great opportunity to share results and lessons learnt since the first workshop twelve months previously.
Principal objectives of the workshop included:
• To continue capacity strengthening in the development and use of successful biodiversity indicators at the national level.
• Report on the indicators developed during the project and their impact so far in each country.
• Identify lessons learned, guided by the indicator development framework.
• Look at the regional aspects of biodiversity indicator development and use.
• Organise the production of a project ‘experience and guidance’ report, to be launched at CBD COP-10 in Japan in October 2010.
• Identify next actions and promote the sustainability of the work.
The programme consisted of:
Day 1: Indicator reports and lessons learnt
On day one all country teams reported on their progress and the challenges and lessons learnt since the start of the project in July 2009. The reports demonstrated the great progress made within just year, with the majority of countries having developed one or more biodiversity indicators. In the afternoon participants worked within their country teams to assess the progress made and lessons learnt for each step of the Biodiversity Indicator Development Framework.
Day 2: Choosing and presenting indicators
The entire day was dedicated to a role play exercise entitled ‘A day in the life of an indicator developer’. The exercise took participants through the purpose and production steps of the framework with an emphasis placed on how the steps can be linked for successful indicator development.
Day 3: National action plans and beyond
The day started with a communication and interpretation exercise, followed by a discussion monitoring and reporting systems for biodiversity indicators. The afternoon was dedicated to planning ‘next steps’ in national indicator development, giving each country the opportunity to make national action plans for the next six months.
The workshop logistics were organised by the Southern African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) with support from the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the Namibia Ministry of Environment and Tourism Scientific Services. Philip Bubb, Anna Chenery and Abisha Mapendembe of UNEP‐WCMC facilitated the workshop.